{"id":2590,"date":"2016-08-16T08:47:00","date_gmt":"2016-08-16T08:47:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.clockwork.com\/?p=2590"},"modified":"2025-03-07T13:51:25","modified_gmt":"2025-03-07T13:51:25","slug":"ux-principles-to-design-for-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.clockwork.com\/insights\/ux-principles-to-design-for-people\/","title":{"rendered":"UX principles to design for people"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Users\u2019 experiences are&nbsp;<em>the<\/em>&nbsp;key to digital product and business success. And yet, we\u2019re talking about experiences, which are innately human and subjective.&nbsp;The truth is that because user experience is literally about how people perceive something, there\u2019s no secret formula that ensures success.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We can use multiple methodologies to connect with our audiences and there are a lot of ways to talk about user experience. We can talk about our emotions and gut reactions. We can talk about established theories and empirical research. We can talk about best practices and the latest trendy book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Luckily, we can look to a wealth of UX resources to guide our practice as navigate the ins and outs of humanness and human preferences. One of my favorite resources is&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.uxaxioms.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">UX Axioms<\/a>,&nbsp;which lists 26 principles of user experience design. The author is Eric Dahl, founder of the MidwestUX Conference, among other things. He has presented these at a number of conferences and refined them along the way. He also authors two card decks:&nbsp;Design Axioms&nbsp;and&nbsp;Health Axioms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here are a few of my favorites from the UX list:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>It\u2019s all about the people, it\u2019s not about the object.&nbsp;A lot gets in the way of doing the best for the users: organizational challenges, stakeholder opinions, technological limitations, and so on. Whatever business or tech requirements exist, the best solution is the one which serves the user best.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Problem finding before problem solving. As collaborators, we can\u2019t solve a problem that we don\u2019t understand. The entire team has to step back and make sure the full problem is understood and articulated before we dive into creating a solution.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Reframe constraints as a forcing function.&nbsp;Hearing, \u201cThat\u2019s a great idea, but\u2026\u201d is never fun. Think of constraints as a challenge to be overcome, not an annoyance that interferes with your work.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Make stuff and then kill it.&nbsp;Don\u2019t be afraid to start over. The first iteration is not always the right direction.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Understand and play with emotion.&nbsp;Emotion is at the core of a user\u2019s experience. Consider a user\u2019s emotions when proposing a solution. For example, you\u2019re working on a healthcare site that serves users with serious conditions. Look at the site through the eyes of someone who could feel scared and alone.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Bottom Line: A user\u2019s experience is complicated. There isn\u2019t one list of truths that we can use to create it, but there are a lot of good resources for us to lean on to think intelligently, humanly, and creatively about what we\u2019re making.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Want to discuss your users\u2019 experience?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Users\u2019 experiences are&nbsp;the&nbsp;key to digital product and business success. And yet, we\u2019re talking about experiences, which are innately human and subjective.&nbsp;The truth is that because user experience is literally about how people perceive something, there\u2019s no secret formula that ensures success. We can use multiple methodologies to connect with our audiences and there are a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[23,120],"tags":[],"coauthors":[73],"class_list":["post-2590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-experience-design","category-level-up"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v23.2 (Yoast SEO v25.5) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>UX principles to design for people<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Users\u2019 experiences are\u00a0the\u00a0key to digital product and business success. And yet, we\u2019re talking about experiences, which are innately human and subjective\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/www.clockwork.com\/insights\/ux-principles-to-design-for-people\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"UX principles to design for people\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Users\u2019 experiences are\u00a0the\u00a0key to digital product and business success. And yet, we\u2019re talking about experiences, which are innately human and subjective\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"http:\/\/www.clockwork.com\/insights\/ux-principles-to-design-for-people\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Clockwork\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/clockworkactivemedia\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-08-16T08:47:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-03-07T13:51:25+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Clockwork\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@Clockwork_Tweet\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@Clockwork_Tweet\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.clockwork.com\/insights\/ux-principles-to-design-for-people\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.clockwork.com\/insights\/ux-principles-to-design-for-people\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Clockwork\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.clockwork.com\/#\/schema\/person\/fcf3f173ebec2db95dca5d23decc57e2\"},\"headline\":\"UX principles to design for people\",\"datePublished\":\"2016-08-16T08:47:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-03-07T13:51:25+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.clockwork.com\/insights\/ux-principles-to-design-for-people\/\"},\"wordCount\":459,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.clockwork.com\/#organization\"},\"articleSection\":[\"Experience design\",\"Level-up: practical execution\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"http:\/\/www.clockwork.com\/insights\/ux-principles-to-design-for-people\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.clockwork.com\/insights\/ux-principles-to-design-for-people\/\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/www.clockwork.com\/insights\/ux-principles-to-design-for-people\/\",\"name\":\"UX principles to design for people\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.clockwork.com\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2016-08-16T08:47:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-03-07T13:51:25+00:00\",\"description\":\"Users\u2019 experiences are\u00a0the\u00a0key to digital product and business success. 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